There are several options for traveling from Manali to Leh. By far the cheapest option is to take two government buses in two days, with one overnight stay in a village in between. To save money, and because of my mistrust for private companies, I initially planned to do it that way. The biggest problem with private companies is that they sell you a ticket and send out their vehicles, hoping that the pass will be unblocked by the time they get there. One guy told me how when he got to the pass, a fuel truck had broken down, blocking the road just at the spot where the landslide had just been cleared. The driver told the passengers they could walk to the other side of the landslide, where another bus would be waiting. So they walked across, in the rain, while big rocks were rolling down the mountain - just to find out there was no-one waiting for them there.
I ended up spending ten days in Manali, waiting for the Road to open. In the meantime, more and more people told me crazy stories about their journeys. Since I was waiting, I didn't plan anything, so I didn't do much. Luckily, I was at the best guest house I have been until now, with some great people with whom I did some small walks to waterfalls and other parts of town. All in all, even though I was waiting, I had a very good time.
Wanting to take the government bus to Leh, every morning I went to the bus stand to inform about the state of the Road. And every morning, the same apathetic clerk told me that it was closed, answering "I don't know" to any other question. At some point, I lost my temper, telling him it was his job to answer my questions. Even though I didn't expect him to be pleased with my comments, I was pretty shocked when all of a sudden a fist appeared through the hole in the booth window, after which he took a stick and started rushing outside, but then he seemed to regain his senses and sat down again. I have no problem to admit that I was out of line, but I have no idea why he reacted with so aggressively. After that, tired of having to face the same man every day and having lost enough time already, I decided I would take a minibus. This is much more expensive than the local bus, but cheaper and less bumpy than a jeep, and it gets you there in one long, twenty hour drive. As soon as the reports about the Road got better, I booked a bus for the next night. I was finally going to Leh. Or was I?
In theory, the buses leave at 2am, but the travel agent warned me that they usually came "a bit later". Roughly 30 people gathered at the pick-up point. Around 2.30, minibuses started to arrive, picking up small groups of passengers. So the group shrunk gradually, until... there was no-one left but me. So there I was, at 3am, sitting on the steps of the town temple, all alone except for half a dozen dogs, who found it desirable to fight their little gang wars right in front of me. Maybe it was just not meant to be, I thought. Maybe something bad would happen if I got on that road. But after another 15 minutes of waiting, the minibus finally showed up. I was on my way to Ladakh, finally!
But first, we had to get over that infamous pass. Just as I got in the minibus, a light rain started falling, tempering my relief. The road that leads up to Rothang-La is pretty good at first, but it gradually gets worse as it approaches the pass. At some point, not far before the landslide, we got stuck in the mud. We got out in the rain to push the bus; the only thing we accomplished is that we ruined a tire. Responding quickly to the situation, the driver got out and smoked a cigarette, while the traffic was piling up behind us. After the driver's well-deserved break, and under gentle pressure of the people behind, we pushed the bus aside (and believe me, pushing a minibus with a flat tire out of the mud is not easy) and replaced the tire. We were finally ready to cross that wretched Rothang pass.
The Rothang pass is by far the worst part of the whole road. Both times I crossed, it was rainy and foggy. There is no vegetation whatsoever; the mountain seems to be made out of mud, sprinkled with rocks. The Road, which doesn't deserve its name at all at that point, is just the same: mud and rocks. The car jolts its way through, tackling pointy rocks, deep mud and potholes with great difficulty. At the point where the landslide occurred, the road was completely swept away, and they just seem to have dug the road on the landslide. The combination of destruction, lack of vegetation, rain and fog makes the place look like a war zone, a nightmare. When I passed on my way back to Manali, the Rothang pass was shrouded in one of the densest fogs I have ever seen. The visibility was reduced to less than ten meters, challenging the driver, who had been behind the wheel for 18 hours. The people in the car, who had been cheerful throughout the journey, had suddenly grown very, very silent - the fear was palpable.
I admit; the Road is a bit of a suicide. There's only one driver for the twenty-hour journey, with very few pauses, in extremely difficult circumstances. The road gets very bad every time you get close to a pass. Very often, rivers cross the road, or even adopt it as riverbed for a couple of meters. Both times I did the journey, we had to wait three or four times because they were clearing a fresh landslide from the road with (sometimes unbelievably old and worn out) bulldozers. The most extreme moment was when, just after we saw a worker dodging an enormous rock rolling of the mountain, we passed at the exact same spot. But in spite of all this, many people take the risk every year, and I haven't heard of any tragedies - although I can't really imagine nothing bad ever happens. In fact, in other parts of Ladakh, I have seen some wrecked Jeeps and buses in the valleys.
But I survived, and it was more than worth it. I was a bit afraid of the possible killer combination of motion and altitude sickness, but thanks to some medication, I didn't feel too bad. The views are absolutely superb. Ladakh is a very arid region, with very rugged landscapes. Only in the valleys, where the melting snow forms broad rivers, bright green patches are visible where people are irrigating the land. So imagine these rough, brown-red mountains, with rivers and greenery in the valley, and white peaks in the distance. At some point, I climbed on the roof of the minibus; being completely surrounded by the landscape is breathtaking.
Yes, the Road...If you're unlucky, it turns into a nightmare. But when the skies are clear and the passes are open, it's an orgy of beauty, a banquet of sights - an amazing twenty-hour torture, which I gladly underwent twice. And it takes you to Ladakh, that region nick-named Little Tibet I knew little about. I was about to discover it, and be pleasantly surprised...
Flat tire on the Rothang pass...
Some of the views on the Road!!
No comments:
Post a Comment